Re: <nettime> Lacanian meets Trumpian

["Michael H. Goldhaber" <michael@goldhaber.org>]

Does all this overheated rhetoric and allusions to Lacan really help us
understand the sad realities of American politics any better? The one
thing left out that might easily have been thrown in for a little
further excess is the conspiracy theory that Bill Clinton got Trump to
run. 

I think that Thomas Frank is largely right that  one key support of the
Democratic Party is the so-called meritocracy. But much of this group
does have concerns larger than self-interest narrowly taken, if for no
other reason than that defines what their merits are good for. Those
interests are  indeed anti-fascist, in ways that do correspond to
anti-Trumpian. For the same reason they are anti- Putin, anti- Erdogan,
etc. 

The meritocracy isn't strong enough to win elections on its own, hence
the need for alliances, and hence the obnoxious chants of "USA,USA".
Likewise the Republicans are not entirely white, male, working class and
racist, etc. so there is a not insubstantial slice that will prefer
Hillary.

An interesting question is how she would govern should she win in a
landslide. LBJ redux? That didn't work out so well.

Best,

Michael 

On Aug 9, 2016, at 3:05 PM, Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com> wrote:

> https://overland.org.au/2016/08/trump-fascism-putin-and-wikileaks-the-anatomy-of-a-liberal-nervous-breakdown/
> 
> Trump, fascism, Putin and Wikileaks: the anatomy of a liberal nervous
> breakdown
 <...>

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